While so many things in this world can tempt us into giving up the throne of our hearts, it can be the easiest to become your own idol. It’s important to take time to examine your heart to see if maybe you’ve put too much emphasis on yourself and your own desires and wants.
Do you find yourself criticizing and blaming others? Instead of focusing on what you need to do or taking responsibility for your own emotions, you find yourself blaming the other people in your life – you have a felt need that they're not meeting. Are you constantly anxious? There are a lot of reasons for anxiety, but when we're constantly focused on ourselves, whatever reasons you might have for anxiety are going to increase. That's why we see this direct connection between social media and anxiety, because the more we put ourselves at the center of things, the more anxious we start to feel.
What would it look like if you began to filter your words through the prayer found in Psalm 115? “It's not about me, it's all about God.” What if you just began to think of your future in terms of this verse where you're thinking about your life and where you'll live, or who you'll get married to, or who you're going to date, or what you're going to do for a living, and you just begin to pray, “God, I don't want to make all these decisions by thinking about me, and instead focus on what is going to bring you glory"?
When you initially read through the ten commandments, you may believe idolatry is not one that is pertinent to us anymore in our culture. We don't have idols like back then since we don't know anybody who bows down to golden images or carved statues in their homes. But idolatry is still very much an issue for us - we just have a harder time recognizing it nowadays because it doesn’t look like it used to in Scripture. Idol ideology has never been more relevant because God has never had more competition and our idols have never had more access to us.
Reflection/Discussion Questions: Do you view yourself as struggling with idolatry? Have you made things too much about yourself?
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